Friday, May 30, 2014

I have been posting on this year after year
… and some remain constant in them… especially the winners being Indians ! ~ It
is a contest conducted with the purpose of helping the students improve their
spelling, increase their vocabularies, learn concepts, and develop correct
English usage that will help them all their lives ~ it is “Spell Bee” and this year history repeated itself with a slight difference. A spelling bee is a competition where
contestants, usually children, are asked to spell English words. The competition in US is now sponsored and
fun by E.W. Scripps Company.

Last year i.e., in 2013, it was Arvind
Mahankali from New York
scripting history by winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee for the year
2013, becoming the sixth Indian-American to win the title in a row. “The words
were extremely hard. It means that I am retiring in a good mood,” Arvind said
after winning the prestigious national championship. Arvind had finished ninth
in 2010 and third place in both 2011 and 2012. In 2012 it was 14 year old Snigdha Nandipati, who spelled “guetapens” to win. In 2011, it was Sukanya Roy who correctly
spelt the tongue-twister ''cymotrichous'' to be crowned the new champion.

Now to the present ~ for the first time in 52
years, two spellers were declared co-champions of the Scripps National Spelling
Bee on Thursday. Indian-Americans Sriram Hathwar of New
York and Ansun Sujoe of Texas
shared the title after a riveting final-round duel in which they nearly
exhausted the 25 designated championship words. After they spelled a dozen
words correctly in a row, Seventh-grader Ansun Sujoe, 13, and eighth-grader
Sriram Hathwar, 14, both were crowned the champion. The two went through the grill for several rounds and in
the end neither blinked. The competition ended after Ansun correctly spelled
"feuilleton" and the word list was exhausted. They were declared
co-champions. Earlier, 14-year-old Sriram opened the door to an upset by
13-year-old Ansun after he misspelled “corpsbruder,” a close comrade. But Ansun
was unable to take the title because he got “antegropelos,” which means
waterproof leggings, wrong.

"I think we both know the competition is
against the dictionary not against each other. I'm happy to share this trophy
with him,"
Sriram said on ESPN after the event. Gokul Venkatachalam of Chesterfield,
Missouri, finished third, and Ashwin Veeramani
of North Royalton, Ohio, was fourth. This year too – the champions
are Indian-American. The past eight winners and 13 of the past 17 have been of
Indian descent, a run that began in 1999 after Nupur Lala's victory, which was
later featured in the documentary "Spellbound."

The declaration of co-champions came after
round 22, when Hathwar spelled “stichomythia,” which is defined as “dialogue
especially of altercation or dispute delivered in alternating lines.” Sujoe
responded by correctly spelling the word "feuilleton,” which is defined as “a part of a
European newspaper or magazine devoted
to material designed to entertain the general reader.” Rich Boehne, chairman,
president and CEO of The E.W. Scripps Company, declared Hathwar and Sujoe co-champions
and awarded them the engraved Scripps National Spelling Bee championship trophy
after round 22. This is the first time since 1962 – and the fourth time overall
– that co-champions have been declared at the Scripps National Spelling
Bee.

According to the website of the Organisers, there were 281
spellers from the 50 U.S.
states, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the
U.S. Virgin Islands, and Department of Defense Schools in Europe; also, the Bahamas, Canada,
China, Ghana, Jamaica,
Japan and South Korea. Speller
218 Hussain Godhrawala, of Barnwell,
South Carolina, was the youngest
speller in the competition at age 8. In the group competition it was 51% girls
and 49% boys. The Scripps National Spelling Bee is the nation's largest and
longest-running educational program. The purpose of the Scripps National
Spelling Bee is to help students improve spelling, increase their vocabularies,
learn concepts and develop correct English usage that will help them all their
lives.

The E.W. Scripps Company (www.scripps.com)
serves audiences and businesses through a growing portfolio of television,
print and digital media brands. After its acquisition of two Granite
Broadcasting stations closes, Scripps will own 21 local television stations as
well as daily newspapers in 13 markets across the United States. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
and its addenda section, copyright 2002, Merriam-Webster, (Webster’s Third) is
the final authority and sole source for the spelling of words; the primary
source used to craft the pronunciations, definitions, and language origins for
the Bee; and the only printed authority consulted by officials, as well as the
sole source used during the Bee to verify the information in our prepared
lists.